Social & Spiritual Book Club

What: Sakinah’s Social and Spiritual program is a monthly book club and session of remembrance

When: Last Friday of the month, 8PM

Where: Location TBD – Within the North NJ area (Address will be shared by email)

Text: Lost Islamic History: Reclaiming Muslim Civilisation From The Past

Instructor: Ustadh Ebad Ur Rahman

Zaytuna Institute - Seminary Program

NYU - B.A. (Islam in America)

Columbia - PhD (Expected 2020)

Abu Hurayra reported from Abu Sa’id al-Khudri that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, “There are no people who remember Allah without the angels surrounding them, mercy covering them, tranquility (sakinah) descending on them, and Allah mentioning them to those who are with Him.”

[Muslim, al-Tirmidhi]

“Read, In the name of your Lord Who created man from a clot. Read! and your Lord is the Most Honorable. Who taught by the pen. Taught man what he knew not.”

(Qur’an 96:1-5 )

“And say: My Lord, increase me in knowledge.”

(Qur’an 20:114)

‘You should not neglect your time or use it haphazardly; on the contrary, you should bring yourself to account, structure your litanies and other practices during each day and night, and assign to each period a fixed and specific function. This is how to bring out the spiritual blessing [baraka] in each period. But if you leave yourself adrift, aimlessly wandering as cattle do, not knowing how to occupy yourself at every moment, your time will be lost. It is nothing other than your life, and your life is the capital that you make use of to reach perpetual felicity in the proximity of God the Exalted. Each of your breaths is a priceless jewel, since each of them is irreplaceable and, once gone, can never be retrieved. Do not be like the deceived fools who are joyous because each day their wealth increases while their life shortens. What good is an increase in wealth when life grows even shorter? Therefore, be joyous only for an increase in knowledge or in good works, for they are your two companions who will accompany you in your grave when your family, wealth, children, and friends stay behind.’

Imam al-Ghazali - may Allah’s mercy be on him

​January 31

February 28

March 27

May 29, 2019 (tentative)

June 26, 2019

Sakinah Institute welcomes you to a monthly book club gathering focusing on knowledge and spirituality. The book club aims to create an opportunity to deepen our understanding of the deen through reading and thoughtful discussion. These discussions are led by Ustadh Ebad ur Rahman.

Sakinah’s Social and Spiritual program is a monthly book club and session of remembrance.

The discussion focuses around the book ‘Lost Islamic History: Reclaiming Muslim Civilization from the Past’ by Firas Alkhateeb

Over the last 1,400 years, a succession of Muslim polities and empires expanded to control territories and peoples stretching from southern France to East Africa and South East Asia. Yet many of the contributions of Muslim thinkers, scientists and theologians, not to mention statesmen and soldiers, have been overlooked. The bestselling Lost Islamic History, now in a new updated edition, rescues from oblivion a forgotten past, charting its narrative from Muhammad to modern-day nation-states.

From Abbasids and Ottomans to Mughals and West African kings, Firas Alkhateeb sketches key personalities, inventions and historical episodes to show the monumental impact of Islam on global society and culture.

Content:

1. Pre-Islamic Arabia

2. The Life Of The Prophet

3. The Rightly Guided Caliphs

4. The Establishment Of The Muslim State

5. Intellectual Golden Ages

6. The Islamic Sciences

7. Upheaval

8. Al-Andalus

9. The Edge

10. Rebirth

11. Decline

12. Old And New Ideas

Firas Alkhateeb holds a Masters degree in Middle Eastern Studies with a specialization in Islamic intellectual history from the University of Chicago. He previously taught Islamic history at Universal School in Bridgeview, Illinois and currently teaches and studies at Darul Qasim in Chicago. He founded and writes the website lostislamichistory.com.

Attendees are requested to purchase the book for these sessions.

The sessions and discussions will be led by Ustadh Ebadur Rahman. Ebad memorized the Qur'an at the age of 15, while a sophomore at Stuyvesant High School. After graduating high school in 2004, Ebad enrolled in Zaytuna Institute's pilot seminary program and studied there with respected scholars Imam Zaid Shakir, Qari Amar Bellaha, Shaykh Abdur Rahman Tahir (God have mercy on him), Shaykh Yahya Rhodus, and Shaykh Abdullah bin Hamid Ali. He graduated from seminary in 2008 and then spent another four years completing an undergraduate degree at the Gallatin School of Individualized Study at New York University, concentrating on Islam in America.

He is currently a PhD candidate in the Religion department at Columbia University, with an interest in Quranic exegesis and scholarly debates within the contemporary American Muslim community.